Resort town takes down Maddie posters
The following article originally appeared on December 12, 2007 at this now rotted link http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22914591-5013933,00.html. I have archived the text of the article because I originally linked to it from my post Did they check Muslims for missing girl Madeleine McCann?:
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TRADERS in the Portuguese resort town where Madeline McCann vanished have taken down posters appealing for help to find the British toddler.
The "Find Madeline" appeals which adorned street corners and shop windows in Praia da Luz have come down and green and yellow ribbons which were tied to trees as symbols of hope have been removed.
Meri Hanlin, who runs a local health food shop, said the child's disappearance had "ruled everything" and "got a little too much" for villagers.
"It's not that the locals don't care about what happened but they just want to get the village back to how it was," she told the Daily Mail.
Madeline's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, launched a massive world-wide publicity campaign in a bid to find the girl after she went missing from their holiday apartment on May 3.
The couple were declared formal suspects by Portuguese police but both deny any involvement in their daughter's disappearance and they have returned to Britain with their two other children.
Even the local Roman Catholic priest has reportedly ordered all traces of the Madeline appeal to be removed from his Our Lady of the Light church, where the McCanns prayed for their daughter's safe return.
McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said the couple still believed they had the support of many people in Praia da Luz.
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